[tristor]

> Why does this matter so much when there is affordable healthcare, lots of social programs to save you in case things don't go so well?

Because when things are going well it means you lose out on a lot of economic opportunity and not everyone feels the same way about the probability of things not going well, or who has the responsibility to cover them in the case that things don't go well. As I said in another comment, increased medical costs which impact uninsured or underinsured people in the US basically don't exist for tech workers who have high-quality employer-paid medical benefits in the US. So those factors don't detract people from moving here if they see other benefits to go along with the economic benefits.

Certainly, it is the case that this has it's trade-offs. I'm not making any value judgement on what the correct decision is for anyone but myself, but just trying to share some of the reasoning I've heard (from a probably biased subset of people).